Well, after being closed for the last two years, we found a new location and are open again! A local church bought and renovated this restaurant space into what it is now, and it is beautiful. We will run the cafe from 8-3 during the day, and after hours we will become a hangout spot for teens with good food, board games, and the occasional movie night. It’s such a gift to be serving the community again.

Years ago I came across a story on HONY, aka Humans of New York that magnified the true heart of a business like ours. 

It’s from a woman who set aside her career to help her dad in their pizza shop.:

“One of my favorite customers was a lady named Marlene. She’d been coming here since she was a kid. Marlene was scared of everything: bridges, trains, steps, you name it. She always took the same street to get here. She’d hug the wall so she didn’t fall. But she made it in here every single day, for a slice of vegetable pizza. Marlene passed away from Leukemia several years ago. And I took off work so I could drive out to Long Island for her funeral. I hit a little traffic coming from Brooklyn, so I ended up being fifteen minutes late. But when I arrived the whole family was waiting for me. They wouldn’t start without me. Come to find out I knew Marlene better than anybody. This lady was just coming into get a slice of vegetable pizza, every day. But those slices add up.” 

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Those slices add up. 

So do those cups of coffee.

When I read that story I immediately thought of our coffee shop, and what a privilege it is to serve such a beautiful community. We’re not just making coffee, we are loving people in the most practical way you can and that pouring out to others has come back to us in more ways than we can count.

In our last location we got to meet Jeff, an elderly fellow who regularly came in for a quinoa bowl or the soup of the day and told us how his chickens were doing. Once he even pulled a couple of baby trees from his own property to plant them in tin cans and gift them to us. We love Jeff.

Then there’s Chris, a customer who once lamented that he couldn’t grow a beard. I’m sure we did what any thoughtful friend would do in that situation: We bought him a crocheted beard, braids down the front, made all the more fierce because it was attached to a Viking helmet with horns. He humored us by putting it on Right then and there. Chris rocks.

One day a sweet lady came in and said she was hungry but didn’t have any money and would it be possible to get anything? We discovered she was a vegetarian so we pulled a quinoa salad from the back and she surprised us by removing a golden hoop earring and placing it on the counter for payment. Perhaps if there were more mom-and-pop businesses around, less people would go hungry.

Then there’s the fellow who came in regularly and traded coffee for random items like a children’s joke book, tiger balm, postcards, and a belt buckle with a skier emblazoned on the front. Each time a trade was made, those items were tucked inside a drawer behind the counter. You gotta love creativity like that.

Since we had a stage at the old shop, we got to hear from someone that I ended up affectionately dubbing the Ed Sheeran of Homer. He came in with his guitar on Saturday mornings with his beautiful voice and skillful strings and it’s some kind of wonderful to feel serenaded by talent like that when you’re in a tiny town.

One time a family asked if they could have a piano recital at the shop, since their daughter’s regular recital had been canceled. How could we say no? I mean that big beautiful piano is just begging to be played. That was a fun morning.

I’m excited to be up and running again, because having a cafe gives us an excuse to meet and mingle with all the people that make this town such a great place.